"I will be richer than any man in town here," he declared in his pride. "I
will be richer than Ed Walker."
Saturday night was the great night in Caxton life. For it the clerks in
the stores prepared, for it Sam sent forth his peanut and popcorn venders,
for it Art Sherman rolled up his sleeves and put the glasses close by the
beer tap under the bar, and for it the mechanics, the farmers, and the
labourers dressed in their Sunday best and came forth to mingle with their
fellows. On Main Street crowds packed the stores, the sidewalks, and
drinking places, and men stood about in groups talking while young girls
with their lovers walked up and down. In the hall over Geiger's drug store
a dance went on and the voice of the caller-off rose above the clatter of
voices and the stamping of horses in the street. Now and then a fight
broke out among the roisterers in Piety Hollow. Once a young farm hand was
killed with a knife.
In and out through the crowd Sam went, pressing his wares.
"Remember the long quiet Sunday afternoon," he said, pushing a paper into
the hands of a slow-thinking farmer. "Recipes for cooking new dishes," he
urged to the farmer's wife. "There is a page of new fashions in dress," he
told the young girl.
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